Comedian Bill Maher said on his show on Friday night that Republicans “have been indulging in an orgy of magical thinking” since former President Donald Trump’s near assassination.
Trump, the GOP presidential nominee as of Monday, was struck by a bullet at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last Saturday evening in what the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investing as an assassination attempt. At the Republican National Convention (RNC) this week, Trump wore a bandage on his right ear, with some of his supporters attending the convention doing the same as a sign of solidarity.
The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper. One rally attendee, 50-year-old former firefighter Corey Comperatore, was killed in the shooting and two more were seriously injured, according to the Secret Service.
“There is not even an assassination attempt that can’t be made just a little worse by adding religion,” Maher said on his political satire HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday. “Since the bullet that was meant for Donald Trump missed him last Saturday, Republicans have been indulging in an orgy of magical thinking.”
Maher, a critic of religion, mocked Republicans who made public statements about how divine intervention was at play during the former president’s shooting.
Some examples included right-wing media personality and former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon who said in a statement last Sunday from prison, “Trump wears the armor of God” and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise who said on Fox News last Sunday, “Yesterday, there were miracles. And I think the hand of God was there too.”
“My point is, that Donald Trump, even if you like him, is powerful enough as a past president, a likely future president and to be perfectly frank, a cult leader,” Maher said. “America doesn’t need a Demi-God.”
Steven Cheung, communications director for Trump’s campaign, told Newsweek via email on Saturday afternoon that “Bill Maher is a vile s*** stain on society.”
Meanwhile, Trump said that if not for God, the bullet would not have missed him.
“It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last Sunday morning. “We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness.”
Trump’s supporters have long likened the former president to a Godly figure.
In January, a video called “God Made Trump” made by a pro-Trump group of video creators known as Dilley Meme Team circulated on social media. It was shared by the former president himself and other big figures in Trump’s base.
“On June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God gave us Trump,” the narrator in the video said. “God said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, fix this country, work all day, fight the Marxists, eat supper, then go to the Oval Office and stay up past midnight at a meeting of the heads of state.’ So God made Trump.”
Reacting to the video on NPR at the time, Robert P. Jones, president and founder of Public Religion Research Institution (PRRI), said, “I think it’s in line with really a long set of appeals to kind of square the circle of why white, evangelical Protestants have been one of the most stalwart supporters of a candidate and president such as Donald Trump.”
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Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.